Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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northeastlawn
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Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Post by northeastlawn » April 7th, 2021, 4:43 pm

This year my plan is to reno my last front hell strip. Is the last bit of original lawn I never got around to redoing.

It was a hodgepodge of grass thru the ages and I am sick of watering by hand so much in the summer. So I decided to reseed it with TTTF this year and got a blend better suited to shade, so the new grass will be better suited to the location.

The strip is also about 3" higher than the sidewalk, so the plan was to dig the soil until its level, and then put down some of the top soil I scraped from the top of it.

The interesting thing is that when I took out the old sod, I came across a ton of tree roots from the neighboring tree thats about 6' and a sidewalk away.

My plan is to just cut the big tree roots, but I have never seen roots to grow up like that before. Will the roots eventually get mowed and recede, or should I dig the strip out deeper just to trim the roots?

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Post by MorpheusPA » April 11th, 2021, 4:14 pm

I've been chewing on this one (and I've been really busy). There's not much you can do. Tree roots do that if the soil is damp, sometimes, or just if they feel like it, or if space is tight.

You can cut the roots and remove them, but it's a big job. Then add soil, stabilize the soil heights, and so on...

northeastlawn
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Re: Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Post by northeastlawn » April 11th, 2021, 5:14 pm

Thanks it was a big job that ended up taking 2 days. My Dad is big on saving any soil he can, so we sifted any loose top soil from the sod. We saved all of that.

The second day we took an old grub hoe thing and chopped up all the soil up to 3” below grade. It was full of roots and took a few hours to chop it up and dig it out. We sifted that soil removing the roots.

I then leveled off the square and started backfilling it with lifts. Rolling it in between so it wouldn’t cause sink big holes later.

When I got to within 1” of the sidewalk I then took the top soil I saved from the sod. I am sure it was full of weed seeds, but i can’t buy that kind of top soil. I leveled and rolled in between a few of the top soil layers, but tried to keep the top kind of loose.

I probably made a mistake in using the sod top soil, but I did apply tenacity with the seed. I suspect I’ll have to soften the soil with BLSC but the old strip was 3” higher than the sidewalk.

I’ll see how it comes out, it’s the last bit of original old grass I had left.

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Wally
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Re: Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Post by Wally » April 13th, 2021, 7:32 am

Why not dig down near the property line cutting all the roots? You could lay a barricade that would stop the roots from growing back on to your side.

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ken-n-nancy
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Re: Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Post by ken-n-nancy » April 15th, 2021, 6:39 am

northeastlawn wrote:
April 11th, 2021, 5:14 pm
Thanks it was a big job that ended up taking 2 days. My Dad is big on saving any soil he can, so we sifted any loose top soil from the sod. We saved all of that.

...
Sounds like you did it right - nothing beats good prep before seeding - getting the soil properly leveled is something that is time-consuming and frustrating to fix afterwards.

Good work!


northeastlawn
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Re: Hell Strip full of tree roots.....

Post by northeastlawn » April 15th, 2021, 8:11 am

[quote=Wally post_id=346349 time=1618313521 user_id=278]
Why not dig down near the property line cutting all the roots? You could lay a barricade that would stop the roots from growing back on to your side.
[/quote]

Its a street tree in the middle of a lot of pavement. My little square is probably where it gets a lot of its water, I am not sure anything I could do would keep the roots from seeking that water out.

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